Advice to Writers
Recently, I was interviewed by Paola Soares of the podcast But First, She Failed (fantastic podcast, by the way!) and she asked me a question that I keep thinking about: “what is your best advice to writers who are just getting started?”
My response had two parts . . . two important things that I think will set every writer up for success:
Read a lot
Write a lot
The reason I keep thinking about this response is because I’m currently trying to get into a consistent rhythm of doing both of these things. With my book launch now more than 6 weeks behind me, I’m really getting excited about working on my next book. But while that will take a lot of time and resources, I know that the best way to set myself up for success with this next book is to flood my life with reading and writing (even beyond the actual book).
Let’s dig a little deeper . . .
Reading
There’s no question, if you want to be a good writer, you have to be an avid reader. I promise you, there’s no way around that. You can’t write well unless you’re consistently immersed in good writing. Why? Because reading will:
Inspire you.
Reading great books inspired so many of the scenes in my debut. They helped me figure out how to best display Anita’s words/journals. They helped inspire how I describe setting and share deep dialogue. And they gave me a framework for how to pace character development. I genuinely love “how-to” books, even when it comes to writing. But something I’ve learned through the process of writing my debut is that nothing teaches you better than the actual thing . . . Reading books with great character development teaches you more about character development than any how-to book ever will.
Grow your vocabulary.
No matter how many books I write, I think I’ll always feel challenged to expand my vocabulary. The English language is expansive, and I want an opportunity to explore as much of it as possible. It’s kind of like the ocean . . . we know we’ll never see the whole thing, but we’re going to explore as much of it as we can while we can, right?
Keep you on top of trends.
Why is it important to stay on top of trends in publishing? Because it’s important to strike the right balance between what’s currently being overdone and what’s being underdone. For example, if every novel has themes of social media overdoses and self-care, you probably don’t want to join the bandwagon, BUT it might inspire another angle that isn’t being explored enough. If everyone is talking about social media, you might wonder, what’s going to happen to our children—the generation growing up with parents who are obsessed with social media and currently documenting their children’s entire lives without their consent? Interesting, right?!
My last piece of advice is to read widely. Read in your genre and read just outside the lines of your genre—imagine how much inspiration that can bring! And if you think you don’t have any time to read, might I suggest throwing a brick through your T.V.? I bet you’ll find lots of time then!
Writing
Okay, this might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many writers sit around reading, thinking about their topic, and trying to learn as much as they can before they start to write. And don’t get me wrong, that’s great! I remember listening to podcasts and interviews with other authors every.single.day when I was writing my debut. But after a few months of that, I knew I’d hit a plateau in learning.
So I started writing, because oftentimes, the best way to learn is by just doing the thing. Getting your hands dirty, trying and failing, getting reps in . . . all of it matters. As with most things in life, you learn by doing. You learn through experience and lots of practice.
When I was learning how to make sourdough bread, I did the same thing. I listened to every single podcast I could find, rented every book from the library, and watched every youtube video that popped up in my feed. Finally, a year later, I’m able to make all kinds of sourdough baked goods. But it’s not because of all the content I took in but because of all the failed breads that ended up in the trash. After many failures, I started to notice what good sourdough should smell like, feel like and even look like. But I would have never learned any of that had I only looked at it through a screen.
Dear writer, it’s time to put the content away and get your fingers to a keyboard. Just write. Don’t give it too much thought. Don’t worry about how terrible your sentences are or that you’re jumping from scene to scene. Who cares! Just keep writing. Get those reps in and when you’re ready, you can go back and edit.
But give yourself lots of time to write before you begin editing, because that’s a whole nother BEAST.
